Land of the Zapatista

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  San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico
Monday, December 18, 2006

Without going into too much detail on Zapatistas, they are a militant group that is at odds with the Mexican govt. over indigenous people's rights. They don't like eco-tourism, and aren't crazy about tourists in general. In 2002, they had a bit of an uprising and the government had to send the army in to stop them. The state of Chiapas is the home of the Zapatista. As a result of this, all three of our travel books STRONGLY discourage driving the road from Palenque to San Cristobal as it's considered "Zapatista territory". There's a serious risk of being "detained" by the Zapatistas. As many of you know, Laura is the navigator, and was well aware of this, but chose not to tell me as we headed straight down this road out of Palenque. I sort of knew something was up when she asked me how much money I was carrying that day. So we left on the winding mountain road and made our way through the Zapatista countryside. We didn't see any (phew!). We did encounter at least three distinct indigenous tribes

a SC Square

. Chiapas boasts multiple indigenous tribal communities. Twenty-four languages are spoken in Chiapas (English isn't one of them) as the indigenous tribes stongly maintain their heritage and culture.

This brings us to the coffee. Mexico produces some of the best coffee around, much of it from this area. Strangely, Mexicans don't really drink the coffee, they just grow the coffee. Most of it gets exported. Mexicans are the highest per-capita consumers of soft drinks in the world but have one of the world's lowest per-capita consumption rates of coffee, even though the country is the fifth-largest producer of the bean worldwide. The average consumption is less than 2 pounds per year. The government hopes to increase this consumption rate. The coffee beverage of choice for most of the country is "Nescafe con agua cliente", or translated, nasty, instant coffee. This would be comparable to owning the Sierra Nevada brewery, and drinking coors light. I don't get it. On the upside, more for us!

San Cristobal was a good place to break into the coffee scene. We immediately stumbled upon a small vendor selling roasted beans. Their top quality bean (about twice the size of a normal arabica bean and very robust), was selling for the incredible price of 120 pesos per kilo

b SC Church

. I could not have been more pleased. Coffee that's better than most I can get at home...for half the price! The premium export comparable to the good stuff we buy in the US went for half that ($3 per pound). We bought a couple pounds and moved onto a coffee coop, which reprsented 75 small growers and boasted a Cafe with a small coffee museum in addition to the bean sales. We picked up some more beans and headed to the mercado.

San Cristobal has great outdoor markets. Food, clothes and just about everything else are sold in the open air markets, often by the indigenous tribeswomen who come down from the hills. (Most of the indigenous tribes are matriarchial, therefore there were alot more women around than men.) They don't like their pictures taken though (I tried). We toured the markets loaded our backpacks and headed back to the campground. (For those of you that have read the Catemaco entry, you'll be pleased to know that we had pasta with real clams for dinner that night!)

The campground came complete with a camp cat. Very friendly and pleasant, the cat selected us as company, and taking pity on it, we decided to feed the cat. In return for our generosity, he claimed ownership of us and sprayed the tires on the bus (pinche gato!). (Let know good deed go unpunished!) San Cristobal marked our last stop before turning Northwest to head back to San Miguel de Allende and the house we have rented for the holidays. Whew! A little rest and relaxation are now in order!! (Sorry - I know, I know!)

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c SC Market Babysitter	d SC Local Ladies	e SC Market 1	f Beans Beans Beans
Market Fruits	Market Vegetables	The Happy Spice

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